Using the Effort Certification and Reporting Tool (ECRT)

At the end of each period, Effort Office staff use the Effort Certification and Reporting Tool (ECRT) system to download payroll information from PeopleSoft and pre-fill effort certification statements for each researcher on a sponsored account.

When the effort certification statements are ready to be reviewed, ECRT sends an email to all effort coordinators alerting them that the statements are available. Effort coordinators are responsibile for ensuring that their status as effort coordinator is current and they have backup if they expect to be unavailable to accept ECRT notifications.

Effort coordinators have five weeks from the date of the ECRT email to ensure that all effort certification statements in their area of responsibility are reviewed, approved, and certified.

Effort coordinators have access to an effort certification statement for each researcher in their area of responsibility. If a researcher does not have a statement or if a statement is inadvertantly included in the wrong area, the payroll data must be corrected in PeopleSoft. After the PeopleSoft database is updated, ECRT will download the correct information into the system. Complete instructions for this process are available in ECRT.

The effort coordinator must review each pre-filled effort certification statement and revise any incorrect information. Once the statement is correct, the effort coordinator approves it.

When the effort coordinator approves an effort certification statement, ECRT sends a notice to the researcher that the statement is ready to be reviewed and certified.

The researcher must then review the statement to verify that the information is correct and then click "certify" to officially certify the statement. If researchers are unable to certify their statements, the principal investigators or someone else with a suitable means of verification can certify for them.

Effort coordinators are responsible for ensuring that all effort statements for their areas are certified within five weeks of ECRT's notification email to them.

Oversight reports, such as the Sponsored Project Employee Summary Report, are available on the ECRT website (X500 login required).